Busy winter birds

The wildlife has fully shifted into winter mode here on the PAWS campus with feeding flocks both large and small moving through on a daily basis. Now that all of the local deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, the flocks have been much easier to observe. Some of the largest flocks have been those formed by Pine Siskins. I’ve seen flocks of siskins numbering in the hundreds filling the highest branches of campus alder trees. Sometimes they are so dense it almost looks like the trees have their leaves back. (Kevin Mack / PAWS)